A Bridge Too Far Page 10

  ‘Despite lack of facilities we were soon running as a sort of dressing station even with some limited operating. Needless to say the Germans were anxious to get as many as possible away to PoW camps. Everything possible was done to delay this but after they had dispatched one group, including some still quite poorly injured, on a typical cattle wagon train, we created so much fuss that the next group was put on a proper hospital train. To my great disappointment I was included in this group, for like most others we were still expecting that 2nd Army would soon be coming through but it did mean that once again I was lucky and had a very easy trip to the ‘famous’ Stalag XIB. But that is the subject of another memory.’22

  ‘Early on Tuesday the lady came round again’ recalled Fred Moore. ‘She was sorry; she had to leave before the Germans came. Daylight came, time passed. The Germans hadn’t come. I moved, slid from the table. I shuffled to the stairs, made to descend on my backside. Halfway down the door burst open. Armed SS men sprang in, eager faces, weapons raised. Is this it? A tall Colonel of Medics thrust himself before them and shouted that the wounded must not be molested. They obeyed - yes they obeyed. We were taken in trucks, about 15 to a truck. The German driver smiled, smiled and shared out apples amongst us. Apples from the tree - one each. The truck rolled on. At a corner the driver stopped to find loot. We waited - I bit my apple. Beyond the truck, strewn at the roadside were the dead. Near the hand of one, legs all awry, lay a bright red beret - I threw my apple away. On to Apeldoorn, to captivity and another story.’

  ‘Apeldoorn is about twelve miles from Arnhem’ recalled John Slatterley ‘and it was here that Queen Wilhelmina had her summer palace Het Leo, which was now being used by the Germans for a hospital. We were brought to this lovely town to the Wilhelm the third barracks all the wounded to be sorted out, badly wounded - not fit for travel and walking wounded able to be moved to Germany when transport was available. My leg by now was a mass of maggots, corrupted flesh and bad blood and stench was overpowering. I was given another operation to cut way the rotted flesh and generally clean me up and then along with seventy two other badly wounded was taken to the Juliana Hospital which the strange reasoning the Germans had renamed the hospital. After Oosterbeek and the barracks with their discomforts the hospital was an oasis of comfort and the rapport between the British patients and Dutch staff was natural and affecting.

  ‘We were tended by all Dutch doctors, sisters and maids, supervised by their German overseers and were in twelve bed wards in this most modern hospital. The windows in the ward doors were blocked out in an effort to prevent civilian visitors from looking in at us, but each visiting day the doors would suddenly open and gifts of tobacco or cigarettes thrown on the nearest bed, the victory sign given by a stranger’s hand or a muffled greeting shouted and the doors would close again. On Sundays, however, the Germans relaxed the non fraternisation rules and we were allowed a Dutch choir, accompanied by a portable organ, singing outside our doors once in the mornings and again the evenings and these good people could then enter the wards and pass a few pleasantries with us. Our two Church of England padres, who had surrendered with us, also visited us on Sunday to administer communion and to give us the news of the week from St. Joseph’s Hospital, also in Apeldoorn, where they were incarcerated. They always arrived very grandly in neat battle dress and red berets and although on parole, were always accompanied by a German guard on a bicycle.

  ‘The mass for the Roman Catholics amongst us was given by local Dutch priests, who practised their usually terrible English on us; Sunday was definitively our day of the week! We were allowed to have three cigarettes per day from the Germans, delivered by elderly guards, who apologised for the small ration, these jaded soldiers knew the war was going to end in defeat for them and were the absolute opposite of the arrogant young zealots of the Herman Goering division who had guarded in the barracks, these poor little men were more prisoners of war than we were.

  ‘I had another operation two days after entering the hospital. The plaster was taken from my leg and a steel pin was inserted through the femur bone, slightly below the break. The pin was attached to a horseshoe, also of steel, through which a cord was threaded, this going over a pulley at the end of the bed. Weights were attached to the cord thus pulling the broken bones part allowing new bone to grow. I along with every other man in my ward was immobile and so the Germans were unable to move us further inland and as the good Dutch doctor Pilar who performed the operation, told me ‘I intend to keep you all here until we are liberated’. We were visited almost daily by beautifully smelling German officers, usually accompanied by Dr. Pilar, who had become quite a sophist in his handling of them, officers in all manner of mysterious uniforms and insignia, apparently they were just curious to see us whist passing through Apeldoorn.’

  ‘By morning we surrendered to the Germans with little way of escaping’ recalled Frederick Hodges of the Borders. Lieutenant Green, the platoon commander, who was also wounded put up the white flag and it wasn’t long before the German forces surrounded us.23 The first thing they did was give every man a cigarette. Captain Hodson was taken off the battlefield on a door and died three days later. I was in a poor state with three massive wounds. A German soldier noticed me and gave me water to drink and filled my water bottle before he gave anyone else water. I looked back over what had been our hiding place these past few days. The ground was littered with dead bodies, German and British alike. It was a disheartening sight to see. The house we had sheltered in was completely gone and nothing was left but a mound of bricks and roof tiles. It was only then that I threw my helmet away.24 I was taken in a German truck to Apeldoorn hospital and then to a school where I had something to eat and fell asleep exhausted. My battalion lost 125 killed. For me the war was over.’25

  Lieutenant ‘Pat’ Glover and several other wounded men were loaded onto a horse and cart on Friday 22nd and taken to the St. Elizabeth Hospital, where he was put in a bed on the top floor. He had removed his badges of rank in the belief that he would have a greater chance of escaping if he became a private. On Sunday 24th he was transported in a similar fashion to the prison hospital established at Apeldoorn and on the way there was an air raid which prompted the German driver and guard to take cover in a ditch while the wounds of the Airborne men dictated that they had to remain where they were. A Dutch priest visited the men at Apeldoorn each Sunday and succeeded in giving vague directions to those who wished to escape and contact the Resistance by slipping a few extra words into the Lord’s Prayer. Glover overheard the following: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven Captain Peter, Hallowed be thy name Underground, Give us this day Otterloo’. Though the instructions were hardly precise Glover knew he should head for Otterloo and make contact with a Captain Peter of the Resistance.

  Sapper Tony Wann described how, after the withdrawal, he and his comrades made their way back over the river. ‘Instead of shouting and pushing, the troops were marvellous. They waited in a queue, ‘like queuing for the pictures’ - for about three hours in pouring rain and bitter cold.’ On the other side a great reception awaited them and this was repeated at the aerodrome where they landed in England and where they had a great feast. He later told a home-town reporter that ‘The Germans treated our men all right. To quote an instance, a party of Germans captured the small hospital in Arnhem where our wounded were, but after looking round they left without touching anyone or anything. And when the Germans wanted to fetch wounded from our lines they just came over in an ambulance, collected them and drove back without being fired upon. We did the same thing.’26‘ Once on the other side it seemed one had reached a haven, despite mud and fatigue’ wrote Colonel Payton-Reid. ‘At about 0600 we arrived near Driel where we came to a Reception Station run, most excellently, by personnel of XXX Corps and here we were shepherded into vast blacked-out buildings where rum and ‘strong sweet tea’ were administered with electrifying results. So congenial was the atmosphere here and so secure did we feel, that we had to be
reminded by our benefactors that we were in fact at the very tip of a long and extremely narrow spearhead thrust into enemy-occupied territory. I had one more small escapade before returning to normality. At this reception station I found myself diverted into the building allocated to the wounded, because I was with Captain Walker, who had a large and gory bandage on his head and had myself some shrapnel in my shoulder. This course seemed to have some advantages to start with, but having been conveyed some way by lorry, we next found ourselves at a main dressing station. It was only then that we realized we had got ourselves into the ‘medical’ evacuation stream, which did not suit either of us as we wanted to be with our units. So, waiting until the Sergeant in the reception room was busy with documentation, we slipped quietly out, hid behind some buildings and then ‘jumped’ a lorry into Nijmegen, thus achieving a successful, if somewhat undignified escape.’27

  Robert Payton-Reid was the only battalion commander in the 1st Airborne Division to be evacuated from the battle. ‘We came back four officers and 72 men’ he said. About 2,500 men were evacuated over the river during the night of 25/26 September, which included 160 Polish paratroopers and 75 soldiers of the 4th Dorsets, plus a few RAF aircrew from crashed aircraft, one civilian and a German prisoner. During the evacuation operation 95 men lost their lives, either by enemy action when on the move to the river or whilst waiting by the river bank, or were drowned crossing by boat or trying to swim across. The British and Canadian engineers lost nine men killed. The evacuees were temporarily accommodated in a church hall at Driel before being taken to Nijmegen by truck and then onto Louvain in Belgium from where they were flown home to England.

  After what seemed like hours despite the time being only close to midnight, Urquhart’s group was loaded into a boat. Packed almost to the point of sinking, the boat became stuck in the mud as it tried to set off, but Hancock, Urquhart’s faithful batman, climbed out and pushed them clear. Half way across the boat’s engine failed and it took several minutes of drifting in the strong current before it could be persuaded to restart, meanwhile German machine-gunners were firing across the river from the high ground at Westerbouwing, but they made it safely across. Urquhart and his ADC, Captain Graham Roberts, went straight to Major General Thomas’ Headquarters to announce his arrival and to request transport so that he could report to General Browning as soon as possible. He was invited indoors while he waited for a jeep. However he declined and chose to stand outside in the rain. Urquhart was furious with Thomas for his complete lack of urgency in the crucial stages. During the night he was transported to Corps HQ in Nijmegen, but before meeting with his Commander, Urquhart, very wet and too tired to even sit down, was offered the opportunity to change into fresh clothes, but he refused, later admitting that he perversely wanted Browning to see him as he was. Browning took his time in coming, but when he did arrive Urquhart noted:

  ‘He was as usual immaculately turned out. He looked as if he had just come off parade instead of from his bed in the middle of a battle. I tried to display some briskness as I reported: ‘The division is nearly out now. I’m sorry we haven’t been able to do what we set out to do.’ Browning offered me a drink and assured me that everything was being done for the division. ‘You did all you could,’ he said. ‘Now you had better get some rest.’ It was a totally inadequate meeting, but my mind had already seized up and every thought required an effort of willpower.’

  Throughout the battle Urquhart had desperately wanted to sleep, but once it was all over he found that there were too many thoughts running through his head to allow rest. He was heavily burdened by the fact that of the 10,000 men he was responsible for, only 2,000 had returned across the Rhine. This had been his first divisional command but over the previous nine days he had seen it ripped apart before his eyes. The next day he visited the commanders of those local units who had aided the Division during the battle, giving special thanks to the gunners of the 64th Medium Regiment, who had done so much to ensure the 1st Airborne’s survival. He believed that their shooting prowess had been such that they had earned the right to wear the Pegasus arm badge of the Airborne Forces and he later made determined efforts to sanction this, but the War Office were not inclined. Returning to Corps HQ, Urquhart began to dictate letters of thanks to all those units who had supported the Division, a task which he could normally accomplish with ease, but his mind had so come to a standstill that he had difficulty in forming even the most simple of comments. Eventually Browning’s secretary offered to write the letters on his behalf and as such they were rather formal and didn’t convey the deep feelings of gratitude that he would have preferred. A meal was held that night for the senior officers with Browning and Horrocks in attendance, but Urquhart had yet to recover his appetite after nine days of deprivation and the battle still weighed heavy on his mind and so he was glad when the party had come to an end. On Thursday he lunched with General Miles Dempsey at his 2nd British Army HQ and in the evening visited Field Marshal Montgomery near Eindhoven. They discussed the battle before retiring and Monty offered Urquhart the use of his personal aircraft to take him back to England. Urquhart however, declined as he had earlier received a similar proposal from Major-General Williams and considering their earlier dispute over the placement of the drop zones he felt it would be tactful to accept the offer. Taken back to England the next day, he was received by General Brereton and from there was summoned to meet King George VI, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, the War Office and the CIGS and he also attended a ‘frighteningly large’ press conference. Concluding his official report of the battle in January 1945, Urquhart wrote: ‘The operation was not one hundred per cent successful and did not end quite as we intended. The losses were heavy but all ranks appreciate that the risks involved were reasonable. There is no doubt that all would willingly undertake another operation under similar conditions in the future. We have no regrets.’

  ‘The memory of my ten days in Arnhem’ recalls ‘Bob’ Scrivener ‘is mostly like a half-remembered dream, with an occasional emergence into wakefulness. I had no idea what to expect and how I managed to avoid the consequences of my ignorance I’ll never know. Once I was sitting in a ditch when I heard a dull thud close by; I looked around trying to work out what it was and then heard it again, only closer. Then the penny dropped and not a moment too soon; some goon somewhere could see me and was shooting at me! I found a more desirable residence. Later I was trying to get my platoon into some kind of defensive position when I heard what sounded like a thousand tin cans being rattled. Curious, I strolled to the end of an avenue of trees and looked along it. Coming towards me were two Tiger tanks and their supporting infantry. My sergeant and I dashed behind a coal shed just in time. The tank fired a couple of shells into the other end, but it must have been full of coal. Unfortunately my sergeant made a run for it. They shot him down before he had gone five paces.

  ‘I managed to get back to my Company HQ along a hedge, only to learn that my company commander, Major Montgomery, the Officer in the regiment for whom I had the most respect, was dead. I felt sick at heart and began to feel for the first time that we were on a hiding to nothing. Out of food, out of ammunition, we were getting a bit desperate. The relief troops should have been here days ago and as we weren’t where we should have been, supplies dropped from the air, dropped into the laps of the foe.

  ‘I was on my way back from battalion HQ, where I had been given orders to take my platoon to ‘C’ Company who were having a pretty thin time and it was then that I met the young soldier of my poem ‘Death in Oosterbeek’. We were both hiding under the same tree trunk, yet he received a fatal wound while I got up and walked away, not realising until later that he was dying. I wondered at the time why it was he didn’t answer me when I spoke to him; He couldn’t, he had a chunk of shrapnel in his neck.

  At the dawning he came to me again,

  That gentle smile and blood upon his cheek

  Reminding me, for his end had come

  In th
e dappled woods of Oosterbeek.

  A passing shower of German mortar bombs

  Had driven me beneath a fallen tree,

  And when, at last I rose, prepared to go,

  I saw him turn his head and look at me.

  The wonder and compassion in his eyes,

  The friendship of the smile upon his face,

  Mocked the blood that trickled from his lips,

  And made me curse aloud the human race.

  He knew they could not hurt him any more,

  No longer would he feel the pains and fears,

  Forgiveness shone from that young soldiers face,

  The mem’ry brings a flood of angry tears.

  I wish these tears would wash away the thought

  That e’en in death we humiliate them so;

  I saw him later at the First Aid Post,

  A label tied to his bare and lifeless toe.

  I often wonder who that young lad was,

  Who gave his life to cross the bloody Rhine;

  And if no loved ones have him in their thoughts,

  Come haunt me lad and live again in mine.

  Death In Oosterbeek by Bob Scrivener.

  ‘But of course it couldn’t last. Sooner or later my luck must run out. I came to a long gully and met a glider pilot in a bit of a state. He asked me if I could fire an anti-tank gun and when I said yes he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the end of the gully. There was a six-pounder, its crew dead around it and one round of ammunition left. What a scenario for Errol Flynn! I’ve never moved so fast in all my life. I clambered up to the gun, shoved in the round of ammo and looked around for the tank. I couldn’t find it! They found me though. A hail of bullets hit the metal shield and white-hot bits of metal flew off, some of them into my leg. I aimed my shot at the tank - God knows where it landed. It wouldn’t have done any damage even if it had hit the tank. I slid down into the gully and limped away to the First Aid Post, where I saw again that young soldier. He needn’t worry anymore.